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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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http://www.archive.org/details/andthencamesprinOOhans 



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AND THEN CAME 
SPRING 



BY 



JULIANE PAULSEN ^uA 

>1<WUL^ > \uJU^*v*_ VsTA^Cfi-. 




ARTIetVeRITAni 



BOSTON 

THE GORHAM PRESS 

1914 



m ^ 



Copyright 191+, by Richard G. Badger 
All rights reserved 






111^ 



The Gotham Press, Boston, U.S. A. 



NOV -7 1914 
&Q.A3S7406 



CONTENTS 

"And then, and then came Spring, — " 7 

A Street 24 

The Harvest 27 

A Witch-love's Lament 29 

Sea and Forest 32 

The Juggler 40 

Wing Weary 44 

The Prairie 46 

Poppy Fantasy 48 

Mother Carey's Chickens 53 

Sonnet 54 

Sonnet 55 

"The Romans — ■" etc 56 

The Wide, Low Plain 58 

At Night 60 

Remember 62 

To Dorothy Grace 63 

Open ! Open ! 64 

A Road 66 

The Poet. 68 

To a Mountain Buttercup 69 

City of Idleness 72 



AND THEN, AND THEN CAME 
SPRING,—" 



AND THEN AND THEN CAME 
SPRING 

A samite of arcana here is laid 

And here a span of words 

Is out of chaos dreamed; 

And here a step is heard 
That rings like sunbeams helmeted, — is made 

A song as one would greet. 

And oh, how fair the green 

Upon the springing wheat! 

The herald of a Coming speeds as some 

Soft wheeling of white doves 

Against the budding wood; 

And in the middle groves 
Thine eyes are still and deep as seas where 
suns 

Make troth with star and star. 

And oh, how still the wood, 

And dread the Coming far! 

The House is rent; and mystery from out 

Of mystery is there 

Still-born. The sun is blood 

Upon the eastern stair; 
And dried is all the sap of youth about 

The temple, root and vine. 

And lo, here Love has stood 

Before an empty shrine. 



"And then, and then came Spring — " and the 

Spring's heart sang 
With bud, and bloom, and sun and rain together, — 
And all her fickle and enchanting weather. 
Like a star, aloof, divine, that hangs 
In clouds, She held me in a dream that rang 
With fiery tears; and golden down the heather 
She told with sorry-sweetness there a bitter 
Love, and laughed and wept where crocus sprang. 

Brightly, as in a forest pool aglow 

The sunrise slants, the Spring went by in young 

Regality; and in her train ran Youth 

With glorious pride, and Love, and Hope, and 

rose 
In hand, they touched the face of Time, and hung 
The sky with radiance, — the stars with truth. 

Who has hurt thee, Mary? Thy deep voice 
Like husky organ notes, does tell it clearly; 
x\nd thy dark, flashing eyes declare thee nearly 
On the brink of tears. Come then, rejoice! 
Thy Hebrew fathers never left unpoised 
Faint-heartedness thy heritage. Cheerily 
Look, as thou wert wont. Thou lovest dearly? 
So brave? so gay? And will not tell thy choice? 

She loveth Caesar! Jewish! But she's bright 
With poetry and courage. Large her heart 
Is with her fellow's grief. So would she carry 
All her sister's burdens, and delight 
In serving. And no pettiness, nor art 
Defiles her, and — I will not hurt thee, Mary. 



I saw thee once as thou wert passing by, — 
But who am I to watch thee? Caesar, say 
Thy bondmaid serveth well in languid days 
Of spring, when Love's mute ministers of high 
Desiring tread the spaces of the sky. 
''And then came Spring — " Tears with laughter? 

Yea, 
I love thee so, — thou with thy kindly ways, 
And subtle laughter in thy sea-grey eyes. 

Not Mary, lord? Not any? Now I pray 
Thee not to jest. Thou lovest Martha, wise 
To guide the young, able to command, strong, 
Unscrupulous. Nay, king, I bid thee stay 
The word of praise, — 'Thou likest well, — would 

prize 
The wayward Spring, — would laugh with me in 

song?' 

Lord, hear! When from thy haughty shoulders 

falls 
The imperial toga of Love's senate-room, — 
When from the world thy forehead's hid, and 

gloom 
Of mutiny o'erwhelms, — when Cassius calls, 
And thine own Brutus smites thee, and thy pall 
Is ready, — know thou this : despite thy doom, 
Thy bondmaid is thy bondmaid. Not too soon 
Can she defend thee, nor thy death forestall. 

Make me thy counsel, Caesar. Versed am I 
In woman's ways, and ward for thy sweet safety 
Fain would I confirm. So fearful, lord? 
Make me thy courage. In Love's court a spy 
I'll be, to tell their silly wiles and crafty, — 
Convict them with a mock, and slay w T ith words. 

9 



Within an arbor lit with blossoms oft 

I see a dreamer sit enthralled; and though 

Her gaze is absent, happiness there flows 

With mystery; and lightly as her soft, 

Slow breath she learns the whole of wisdom 

sought, — 
Delight, and sorrow, and a love that so 
Is filled with terror that a captive knows 
She for herself that in Love's war was bought. 

I would that I might hold thee in that place, — 
Thou, with my dreaming, who art all sorrow, 
And all of love, and wisdom, and delight. 
I would be thy one bondmaid for the days 
And years to come, and pleasures of the morrow 
Tell o'er with thee through flower-lit, wizard 
nights. 

A woman cast her dreams in eyeless streets 
And let them lie; she made her laughter low 
With tears, and loved the answering noisy beat 
Of tongues. She brought in hordes where one 

should go. 
Her soul's still waters did she lend for needs 
Not spoken, — tasted salt of sweat and blood 
From seas inscrutable, and plucked their weeds 
Of bitter helplessness. And once she stood 
Where Death was laid with purple lids fast- 
closed; 
And guilt of Hoder's witless crime she knows 
Within the circle of her days where hands 
Of hours clasp each across a crimson sand. 
And yet she did but listen to a song 
Soft-toned, — but knelt at Caesar's feet too long. 



10 



Let us lie in some old orchard where 

The trees hang down their fruit; some fragrant 

lane, 
Where larks of the deep meadow or dry plain 
Sing for the solace of the place. And there, 
Like worshippers stripped of their human snare 
Of grief, see rapture in the Unexplained; 
And reverencing a god for his vast pain, 
Put on the golden cloth of dreams he wears. 

And then the time of hating seven-fold 

Forgotten was; and there in ecstacy 

Of passion, and eager-eyed, was Love. 

And in the shelter of that orchard old 

Was secret, stirring peace, and radiancy 

Of thrushes' songs, and symphonies of doves. 

Out here on level places runs the wind 

Free over boundless acres of cool grass. 

Unceasingly it flows along a path 

Of wind-flowers, that dwell together in 

A sweet communion of frail ferns, and dim, 

Pale stars, reflecting skyey ones. And fast 

It runs, unchecked and keen, as it had passed 

Unchallenged bulwarks of the forests, rimmed 

With hills. It is the wind of long desiring, — 

Come away ! And of the never tiring 

For your lips on mine. And keenly sweet 

It is, as love that cannot die. Ah, greet 

It brave! It sees no God, nor ever saw. 

Like love, it is the Law before the laws. 

The setting sun stretched back a living brand 
And sealed the song of the last, merry lark 
That sang on glancing reed. And night was dark 
Upon the fields of wheat and fallow land. 
11 



Another night ! The flushed moon rose, fanned 
By waving branches of the thicket where 
The fireflies streamed in drops of flame; and bare 
The stubble lay beside the pallid sand. 

ift my tongue is mute beneath the fire 
Of this strange love: and sight is dark before 
The wilderness of passion in my veins. 

Another night ! Thine image i _:ier 

Than the wakened moon: thy words no more 
.Are beaded streams of unimpassioned flame. 

Xot that my love is laggard do my words 
Falter to thee. Xot that your voice has ceased 
To vibrate in my heart, for still the 
And music of your accents there are heard 
With sudden beatings, as the wings of birds 
Aroused from covert: nor that your thoughts 
Xo longer flow to me as fully fraught 
With eloquence of love on love averred. 

But because at every glance of thine 

My soul leaps up to question. "Wherefore art 

Thou worthy?" And my heart whispers. "He 

Is Caesar, thou art thou!" For this the time 

Goes silently. But certain counterparts 

I carry here of all dear words for thee. 

This is a summer land not needing name. 

S -till it lies. — so pure and fair. — afloat 

With knee-high poppies, and with ripening oats. 

And foaming in the sloughs, and through the 

lanes. 



U 



Long breakers of white clover; and the stain 
Of crimson mallows on the hill. Like notes 
Of drowsy song, the bees hang o'er remote, 
Low blossoms, — swinging in their lucid flames. 

The very passion of love's peace is here 

With thee. The pulse-beat in my throat I hear, 

And, as a velvet-beating wing, thine too. 

My hovering thought waits on thy words; while 

faintly 
Clover-bloom allures, and shy things quaintly 
Pass, dallying, and flaunting summer hues. 

The mountains loom, obscurely near, behind 
The twilight haze; the canyons filled with keen, 
Wild fragrance, wind in shade and dusty green 
Into the hills; a faint allurement fines 
The mesa's terraces of undefined, 
Pale slopes, where just a pearl and opal gleam 
Almost unites them. Dusk, and lights between 
The dark, and me make little, friendly signs. 

Silence, and night ! And thou art there. I fain 
Would ask one boon, — to touch thy face and 

yield, — 
Thou who art named in every falling day. 
Daily and nightly, Caesar, do I say, 
"Now will I seek him — " yet a pride I shield, 
And play the woman's ancient, furtive game. 

The full moon shines without a stain all o'er 
A valley that lies under storms whose glooms 
x\re topped with domed pearl; and darkened doors 
At moments open on a radiance too 
Intense, — on other fiercer walls. And now 
Again there shoots the lightning-flame of distant 
13 



Brands, as if an angel with a brow 
Of care looked down on us, and looking, listened. 
And now there leaps a plumed pen I hat writes 
Before the glamour of that tragic face, — 
That Countenance that turns to me its light, 
And then to thee, in a far, haloed place. 
Caesar, does One write, with burning pen 
Of silence, deeds I might have done for men? 

Does God sit so, in stillness watching far 
The doing of his worlds? That One who plays 
The dizzy checks of suns and planets barred 
With splendor, are his eyes as these fierce rays 
That smite the earth? Whence this wind that 

shakes 
No leaf, nor lives, nor faints? This pantomime 
Of letters in rose-lightnings, and shapes 
That peer out every opened door of flame? 
No breath of sound attends the sudden brands, — 
Does so a Memory forever count 
Inharmonies man makes in a First Plan, 
That such cold fire flows ceaseless from the Fount? 
The tempest falls. Caesar, shall I fear 
A prophecy of clouds in later years? 

Eternal stand the ranges of the peaks, 
Unchanging and unchangeable, sublime 
Above vicissitudes of storm and time. 
And ever-fresh, the forests clothe the meek, 
Low hills with constancy. Still ever sweet, 
The dawn renews its beauty; and the fine, 
Stained bells, and humble turf restore the lines 
Of youth and loveliness in dale and creek. 



14 



Oh, Doubter, look up to the peaks that shake 
Their wings of opalescent light, and know 
That Love spreads pinions like that fiery snow, 
And folds us close with its eternal faith. 
That long as the long, long time of earth shall flow 
Will Love look on us with a tender face. 

Sunrise on the Sangre de Cristo! Aye, 

But watch the clouds roll slowly back, and see 

How swiftly down their front the shadows flee. 

And hush! Triumphant light comes darting high 

From peak to peak, to the most distant sky. 

And now the range is dyed like to a sea 

Of tossing, evanescent hues, and seethes 

Above the molten clouds. Why turn thine eyes 

To the naked day to come? Nay, come nigher. 

These are the heights of love, and clothed in fire 

W T e dare ascend them. Let be forever 

The transfiguration of the hour 

When thou art glorified; nor let me ever 

Know all my love for thee, — nor thou thy power. 

The beauty of the mists enfolds us still. 
From chasms and cliffs impassable it sweeps 
O'er far, dark pines that fringe the snowdrift's 

feet; 
And azure haze from depths untold o'erfills 
The glacier's brink where witchery wins the will. 
The gulfs that gloom below the smoky wreaths 
Are silent for foreshadowing the fleet, 
Wild spirit glimmering among the hills. 

What tenderness of line and hue! What tears 
Of Spring upon the place where common winds 
Keep troth! It touches me with mournful fear. 
The morning breathes a soul not far — not near, — 
15 



But cloaked. And all the winds are faint that 

bring 
The voice of Caesar, as from far-off years. 

''All Nature is a symbol," thou hast said. 
"A sign whereby to read." Below us are 
The stream of changing silver, flowing far 
From out yon tracery of mountains spread 
So daintily against the sky, and dead 
Unending wastes of plundered forests, scarred 
By human selfishness. Bereft, ill-starred, 
The valley lies, — fit couch for Ruin's head. 

Tell me the meaning. Desolation only 

Is here. These blackened stumps, and fallen 

trees, — 
Are thej r the hopes once springing in the lush, 
Green vale of Youth? So may one's life be lonely 
With a wanton desecration? these 
Lifeless trunks be days? Why art thou hushed? 

Against encroaching emptiness, that never 

Is by reassuring comfort here 

Divided, flow the clamors thick and near 

Of human hopes importunate; and ever 

At imaginary gates, with tremor 

Of their outstretched, poising wings, the w r eird, 

Still figures of man's long desires hang clear, 

And unashamed, and unresigned forever. 

Let me not weep, despite the silence wrung 
By fear. But let me still before the gates 
Of Love's imagined citadel, where late 
The glory of a royal presence hung, 
Keep blameless watch; and unresigned, yet wait. 
Believing, where a changeful Spring was sung. 
16 



Once our two souls did speed across the days 
And left a sunny, laughing wake in Time's 
Deep ocean. Thou first, — cutting through the 

brine 
Of sad and happy tears a fearless way, — 
And I, thy foolish shadow, half in play 
Forever trailing thee. And 3 et those fine 
And subtle threads of thought were never lines 
To hold a shadow. I was thyself, more fey. 

And therefore art thou mine. Though never 

should 
I see thee more, nor touch thy hand, nor claim 
Thee outwardly, — for payment of my tears, 
And love that was half told, and faith that stood 
A mainstay for my love, still art thou named 
And known for me, through days to deathless 

years. 

Not that the times affright me with their dearth, — 
Nay, fullest knowledge cannot gainsay this: 
Tli at I must love thee utterly. Nor kiss, 
Nor word can take or add its little worth 
In that one fact. Nor can a weary earth 
Divide with stress of life, or the abyss 
Of silent years, we two, — so close are twist 
Our days of sorrow with elusive mirth. 

But should thy life be squandered out in deeds 
Too small, — then could I weep, and for my an- 
guish 
Drink the hemlock that is found in lean 
And selfish living. Or thy fellows' need 
Appeal, and thou be dumb, — then would there 

vanish 
Star, and Lodestar, and a world of dreams. 
17 



A wilderness of emptiness whose rim 
Is ridden over by the feet of clouds; 
A desert clamoring, with forehead bowed 
Before the onslaught of the bitter wind 
That seeks its fellow in the darkest brim 
Of heaven's bowl; and on the alien world 
A strangeness from the outer space is hurled, 
And newer desolation, vast and dim. 

Futility of grief! And love cast down ! 
There is no hopefulness in ravaged bloom, 
Nor loveliness; no golden-grained crown 
Of royal fields to grace the bridal noon 
Of Loneliness. In vain the virgin dunes 
Make lamentations for the tempest's wounds. 

Up to Fortune's face I strain, and know 
Her there, behind the shadows of her wheel. 
Like wings of snowy doves that mount and reel 
Against the sun, — fringed wide with silver glow, — 
Her garments shine. Immutable, and slow, 
The heavy -burdened wheel revolves. The weal 
And woe of men is on her lips, — the seal 
They gave, for which she cannot let them go. 

Upward I reached, and saw thee there, 
Leaning beside the cold, sweet, weary maid. 
I named thee, through the turning bars as I 
Went down, torn past. Oh, pitiful thine eyes 
As hers that swam in tears. But where was laid 
Thy hand, the once she cried, my heart is bare. 

She weeps and smiles, — the girl with weary eyes, 
And small, slight hands upon the wheel she turns 
Through sun and cloud. And ceaselessly there 
yearns 

18 



To her the naked poor as they sweep by, — 

A glory in their faces as they cry. 

The overflowing wheel, where anguish burns, 

Unhurried and not slow descends; and spurned. - 

Shrivelled for her woe, men strain and die. 

There went a faee so hopeless that I held 
The immortal hands — such loss I heard 
In that faint murmur. And she said: "Thy love 
Must suffer on the endless round, — must move 
Amid old days, remembering, — tell 
Faint stars thy name, — make prayers of thy least 
words." 

And then I dreamed, — my life is all a dream 

I think, — that your sw r eet eyes were w T atching 

me; 
Thine embrace soothed me in my agony 
Of grief; and thy close-breathing voice did seem 
To promise me there was no night supreme 
Could separate our lives; and sesame 
Thou gav'st to all your silences; and keys 
That held the portals where love's radiance gleam- 
ed. 

Is there no w T ay across the world? No throbbing 

Current of my love to strike a chord 

Upon thy heart's long-silent strings? No Lord 

To answer prayer? Is there no end to sobbing 

In the dreadful night? No other dew 

Than my own tears? No life but grief renewed? 

"And then came Spring — " Desolate the song 
That once so gaily fearless swxpt these strings 
Of color, and as honeyed bells that swdng 
In silent chimes upon a sunny lawn, 
19 



Thrilled with the breath of youth and c< 
stn a _ 

But ere their trembli: _ led came Love on 

wings — 
Smote, with touch full-arrogant, the strings 
To new and holy sound, — chords loud and long. 

"And then came Spriit , — " And here amid the 

dead. 
Gray wastes is >ilence, and the scourging 

Almost have I prayed to hate thee. — thou 
Unhurt by love. Thy gentle words are now 
Become more cruel than public jibes that sear 
The thought, — thy memory more darkly fled. 

One spoke thy name in careless ss lay 

Amid a throng, and the one word came out 

To me. thrilling as some great organ-shout 

That overwhelms. .And through the noisy way 

Of words the fires of love leaped up. and played 

Above the seeming-lifeless ash about 

Thy memory. Again wert king, and doubt 

Forsworn. I saw thee god in human clay. 

I must awake. *Ti- I. not doubt, that is 
Forsworn. With lighter words, and careless scorn, 
I must persuade my comrades I am whole 
Of any hurt. In solitude my soul 
May listen to a faultless master-tone. 
Remember almost that my love was his. 

Memory doth like a star with slender 
Tongues of rippling light wake o'er the stream 
Of Lethe where I stand, and shadows seem 
To weep, with softened tears, and knowledge 
tender. 

20 



Now he who did with love both help and hinder 
Must be forgot. Let me drink sleep, and dream 
I never lived, — ne'er saw a spring-flower gleam, — 
Nor laughed, — nor wept the hour of love's sur- 
render 

But just now, as I stooped, thy soul did part 
The impenetrable veil, and spake, with eyes 
O'erclouded, and a sigh. Ah, let me but 
Remember in the wilderness thy heart 
Was great and wistful in that look and cry, — 
Thou would'st have loved me ere the veil was 
shut. 

To keep a tenderness for those who hate, 

Confused in grime and smoke. Or for the glory 

Of a song to be beloved. Or story 

Of a fire divine that kindled late. 

To come to men as comes unquestioned faith; 

A soul to swear by in the night of hoary 

iVge; a well of strength in transitory 

Days of good and ill, — a match to Fate. 

Oh, weary day! If I may only turn 

The mirrors of my love to saving night 

That none but thee may lie therein. And then 

Will passion wane? The earth bloom dull as when 

The seasons fade in drouth? No new, deep light 

Open with each Spring that laughs and burns? 



21 



EPILOGUE 

Comes he not swift beside the river tossed 

Continuously in wan 

Tumult? But now he comes, — 

And now he stands upon 
Thy withered throne of shadows built across 

The Waste where souls must come. 

(Oh, love, I hear the tears 

Fall from the dying sun!) 

I pray thee, goddess, give thine eyes to one 
Who claims my soul, and bow 
Thy forehead calm, and mark 
His tenderness of brow. 

(The thin, lit shadows part and meet upon 
The languid grass; and dim 
They speak, unfolding hands 
In deep-welled signs to him!) 

For me he could not love. Nor could I kneel 

To him adored. But lay 

Him on thy breast as soft 

As Love in heart o' May. 
(The spent souls fall from off the crowded wheel 

Of Life, and each is dark 

For breath, — and oh, how long 

He leans upon thy heart!) 



And with thy hands on his this love of mine 
Unfold to him, — this long, 
Tired love that cannot end 
Its circling web of song. 

(Close-curled has fallen the white rose of thine 
Upon his brow, — so I 
Would lean to him, — lie hushed 
For that still look and sigh.) 

And put your lips upon his languishing 
That I have dared not meet. 
And with your listless roses 
Plucked in weary streets 

With pale triumph crown him, vanquishing 
My love. (I have heard 
Flow fierce throughout the world 
The whisper of his word!) 

A\\ thy cold, sweet body, Proserpine, 

Give him. And w T ith his brow 
Beneath thy throat the lilies 
Of thy bosom now 

Give over, Proserpine. Oh, Proserpine! 
(With bound looks, — entwined, — 
Oh, Lost to me, take this 
Love-wondered for mine!) 



23 



A STREET 

I know a lane where pale clematis creeps 
Along the hedges row; where the fragrant 
Festoons are turned by winds as lingering slow- 
As distant voices that are heard in sleep. 
And through the vines there Hows the sound of 

vagrant 
Seekers of the starry bloom; and low 
The leaves stir listlessly, as if a weak. 
But fiery hand cast down their scarlet fragments 
In the dust. Sad relics of June's rose, 
Sere and laggardly they fall; 
Leaves of dear remembering, — 
Flaming soft and late they keep 
Faith with one along a street 
AVhere clematis clambering 
Decks the hedges and the walls. 

So sunny are the stones and warm! They are 
The chiselled stones of history in bringing 
Back a memory. Among the brown, 
Uneven flags, and shadow-deepened scars 
There lie the steps of yesterday, and stinging 
Fresh, the print of Launcelot going down 
To Camelot. But neither near nor far 
Is there a shallop, where a maid for singing 
'Tirra-lee' may wind a lily crown 

Wan and languidly, and die, 
Floating through the silent place. 
"He has a tender face," 
She said, flaming soft to keep 
Faith with one along a street 
Where the maples hide the sky. 



24 



The orchard fences lift a careless screen 
Beside the corner crossing; far back lie 
Deep verandas shielding generous door; 
And beetle-browed behind the poplar green 
The attic windows glimpse the passers-by. 
We loiter in the shade of noon before 
The picket gate, and smiling-eyed, we lean 
In happy tolerance, to greet, and sigh, 
And nod; and farther, where the maples o'er 
Road and alley drop their splendor, 
And the shadows faintly gloom 
Gold and azure in the noon, 
Shy and happily they greet, 
Keeping faith along a street, — 
Young, and fair, and tender. 

The afternoon goes by upon the wings 
Of drowsy airs, that fan the rustling leaves 
With Autumn indolence. From far beyond 
The spires, where high the sunset gilding clings, 
The slender shadows come with cool, wet feet 
Beside the hedges; and beneath the awns 
Of starred clematis, soft they couch, — a fringe 
Of frail, dark shapes. They are the dusk that 

weaves 
From humming wires, and wildbird notes, the song, 
Love-desiring that I know. 
Faint, and clear, and holy-sweet, 
Faith it keeps along the street, 
Like a voice that's ne'er forgot, 
And stirs the heart for what is not, 
And whispers in the afterglow. 



25 



The little moon hangs straight above the high, 
Blaek mountain heads, as though a rider, on 
His mystic quest behind the bend of heaven 
With scimiter alone would light the sky, 
And twilit earth that slips beneath, beyond 
The pool of night. So still, — so wan, — from 

driven 
Clouds and hidden stars, a wind comes by, — 
A darkling phantasy of air. 'Tis gone, 
And from the secrecy of night is given 
Sudden arc-lights aureoles, 
Banishing the shadow souls 
Gathered in the rustling groves, 
Walking there for grief and love, 
Half-articulate and sweet 
Keeping faith along a street. 



26 



THE HARVEST 

So vast the stores of grain the prairies yield 
At harvest that their level distances 
Are more the floors of heaven overspread 
With golden tapestry, and thick with sheaves 
Of pale, bronze plumes embroidered, than the 

fields 
Of earth. And o'er the shocks the silence is 
Of someone young and infinite, who treads 
With buoyant step the plains; and from cloud- 
sleeves 
Not quite reveals majestic arms and hands 
Of Destinies, that bend benign above 
The stubble, and with eyes of summer love 
Give graciously the harvest of the land. 

The loaded wagons move from shock to shock; 
And seeming-slow, the reapers lift the sheaves 
Of heavy-drooping, bearded grain on forks 
That flash the glistering sunlight from their tines 
In fiery needles, — through the wheaten stalks 
They glint like tiny flames. The men with sleeves 
Rolled back upon sweat-beaded arms, and marks 
Of earthy toil on brows and throats deep-grimed, 
Have given their bodies to the wintry rain 
Of April, and the scourging July sun. 
Along the endless floor of stubble-run 
They move, like tardy shadows on the plain. 

One-time men went about a lesser plan 
Of fields, enclosed by aging trees, or hedged 
By thick-entangled branches, — stony, loth 
To yield. And with them went a slower band 
Of weary, stooping gleaners, who, with hands 
Of toil, picked meager sheaves along the edge, 
27 



Of precious grain; and bound it, careful both 

Of stalk and ear, lest in the teeming land 

There should be want at home. With damp 

scarves girt 
About their sweating brows, where strings of hair 
Hung close, they sunk their hearts in bleak de- 
spair, 
And broke their courage in the callous earth. 

Then grudging did the soil yield up its grain 
To frugal peasant, tilling with quaint plow, 
And oxen yoked, the too-unwilling ground; 
And frowning did it seem to take the seed 
From the patient sower's arm, who fain 
Would rest among the furrows. To the bowed 
And deadened harvester, who early bound 
And shocked his narrow field, there never reed, 
Nor rustling stem of wheat, disclosed the glory 
That went elusively before his scythe, 
Evading, e'en as now T it goes, and blithe 
Declaring half the passion of its story. 

Unveiled, it pauses in the heat of noon. 
Not willing yet to grant acquaintance dear, 
It walks in living gold of sound and sun 
Abroad upon the harvesting. Its skirts 
Are fragrant with the ripened clover-bloom; 
And warm, its yellow hair is spread out here 
In fields of summer heat. Here lightly run 
The minstrel winds, with flying cloaks ungirt, 
And with vibrating throats they tuneful cry: 
"Oh, Soul Divine of fruitfulness and long 
Enduring life! Oh, Spirit of the strong, 
Oft-bearing Motherhood of earth and sky!" 



A WITCH-LOVES LAMENT 

Sun-born of a jasmine land, 
Fire-crowned from a southern sand, 
Came one with a crocus wand 
And whispered a name. 

Through ways of rush and bracken, 
In ferns and mosses shaken, 
Where wet fowls speak and waken, 
Sped I in the dark. 

I fled from a snare of song, 
And wanton sweet flowerets flung 
In perfumes remote and long, — 
I fled from a star. 

Then there rose from words soft-beating 
Mad glories of visions fleeting, — 
As echoes float, and meeting 
Re-echo again. 

Strange captor of bonded maid 
Wert thou in the morning shade. 
Unswerving and unafraid 
In lilies of rose. 

In lilies to red rose breaking 
While kindled eyes were taking 
The draught of love, unmaking 
The witching of night. 

So close was a hand on mine, 
And closer a whisper blind, 
And silenced the heart of time. 
So late did we know 
29 



The dawn like an ocean streaming 
Over yielding floors of dreaming, 
Where figures start, and gleaming 
Go out in a sigh. 

My soul, like a dark night-flower, 
Sprang from the passioned hour, 
And swung in a sheltered bower 
With singing of day. 

(Oh, dreadful day of sorrow!) 
Long marvel of the morrow, 
And crocus wand that borrowed 
The glamour of love. 

And evening's straight path shone 
On sea, and on marshes lone, 
And on waves that w T ere wildly blown ; 
And hurrying hosts 

That ran with a haggard straining, 
Crowding the red-gold Flaming, — 
Seeking the shadows staining 
The wings of the sea. 

We heeded the vanguard swift, 
And heeded the motley shift 
Of phantoms like bubble-drift 
On breakers of light. 

And words were light as flying 
Along the purple lying 
Athwart the restless sighing 
Of waning of day. 



Thy flight was as the going 
Of ruddy twilight flowing 
From heav'n's marge, and sowing 
The way with its blood. 

And thick in your steps there ran 
Wan rivers of living sand, 
And faintness of jasmine land, 
And flowers of crocus. 

Oh, Shade of Even, weeping 
The Shade of Midnight, keeping 
The glory of day, and weeping 
The sorrow of night. 

And up from the clouding night, 
As were love and fear unite, 
Come pale witch-fires alight, 
And mother crews 

Who race in long, pale foaming 
Across the lost sea's gloaming, 
And answer low my moaning, 
And whisper a name. 



31 



SEA AND FOREST 

Across the void there glanced 
Amid the cosmic throng a solar lance 
Plume-tipped with fire, — the earth, divinely 
winged. 

Through ages numberless the quaint device, 

With saffron, floating sails outfurling thrice 
The length of Time, went swinging to and fro. 
Oh, shining space, where bannered suns did go 
"Wheeling and wheeling on the Undertow! 

Then like slow turning in the darkened sleep 

Of unborn life, was stirring in the deep 

Of earth; and while the pulsing silence leaped 

Beneath the yearning of the Unexplained, 

The land's long shadow, and the sea's green plain 

Was made the place of breathing, and of pain. 

A shadowy dawn, and far, when vaguely in 

Earth's bosom, as the vapors in a wind, 

"Was rocked the Life from winch all life begins. 

Immeasurably the planet-cradle swung, 
A girdled sea in ropes of twilight hung, 
And waning sails on either side out-flung, — 
Sun-stricken harps boomed there inaudibly. 

Not like to sunrise flaunting gaudily 
On walls of fire and rose, — triumphantly 
Life wakened. Nor where seething waters ran 
Through dancing highways measureless to span, 
And monstrous spoutings of Saharic sand; 
But softly, on a dark and dreamless ocean, 
Tossed and swayed with many a languid motion 
Of tepid tides, that in a meek devotion 
32 



Reshaped the clouds that leaned against the sky, 
There rose the struggle of a velvet sigh; 
And as the opening of an infant's eye 
That seeks for darkness in the troubled day, 
Was stirring in the ooze of that bright clay, 
And blind, weak groping for the open way 
Out of the embrace of the mother-wave. 

Out of the sea! the sea! and shell-hued caves 
That always with a sapphire light were bathed. 
Out of the brooding sea that held its slime 
By time inviolate, and crusted rime 
On marges yielded laggardly, in brine 
Slow-heaved. Out of the sea where stained bells 
Still choral liquidly the passing knells, 
(Tongued moonbeams were those ruddy shells!) 
Of lives that wandered on the leaning bars 
Of shoaling sand. 

Out of the sea whose far 
Forgot Conception is the holy star 
Immaculate, — whose passion of the beach 
Is love omnific, — whose purple reach 
Is flowing music, and transcendent speech. 

Out of the sea immutable, — whose source 
Enduring beauty is; whose deathless force 
Renews itself from life destroyed; whose course 
Is on the aging earth, there came no race 
But like a seashell in a lonely place 
Feels fa : ntly verberant a wild embrace, 
And knows at intervals the tempest-born 
Delight of grey salt waters crashing on 
A sounding shore. 



33 



And urgent in the dawn 
Of life created of the first sea-folk, — 
Who crept and loitered where the waters broke 
Upon the warm translucent sand, — there spoke 
The voice of hunger, and of new desire, 
Bred of the empty living, and the fire 
Of ancient yearning of the waves first heat, 
And luring of the restless air that beat 
Like lift of spreading w r ings and soaring fleet. 

From gardens stretched in sinuous lines across 
The pristine sea of motherhood, — from moss 
That clung in shallows, by the stones embossed, 
There w T andered opal-armored life. From bleak 
Sea-ledges, muffled in the fertile Deep, 
And colder grottoes of the shore, all streaked 
With blood-red dulse, — as though some helpless 

thing 
Had died by violence there, and lacy w r ings 
Eknbalmed the tragedy, — from vines like strings 
OF sirens' tangled hair, and giant kelp, 
And low-tide wrack along the rocky shelf, 
Crept the dwellers of the primal sea. 
From violet-sunbeamed groves of leaves 
That follow in the rocking waves, and weave 
Their plumey fronds and antlered stems, they 

came, — 
The swift, dark rovers of the ocean plain, 
And regal conches with their throats aflame. 

Upon the shores that waves had chiselled deep, 
In bayous hidden, where the rivers meet 
And melt into the sea, and on the sw 7 eet 
Salt marshes spreading far, they came, and slow, 
In morbid famine of the ebb and flow 
Of early travail. And from beaches strow r n 
34 



With silver armor, and with topaz shields, 
They crept, as creeping goes the snail in fields 
Of moss. 

And where the rugged headlands kneeled 
In moonlit marbles, came they twos, and threes, 
On noiseless stealing upward of the sea. 
Through golden weeds about the mountain's 

knees; 
And on, to pale grey capes of rock, all bathed 
In light, up to the Forest Soul, arrayed 
In copper leafage, where the churning waves 
No more left skeins of yellow foam. 

Oh, long 
The living sea-shells heard the forest's song 
Through ages modeling, with spirit strong 
Their shells as sculptors clay. 

Up from the blue, 
Majestic desolation, and the hue 
Of silence vast, into a silence new, 
Where sunlight never fell; where long moss hung 
Festooned from branches, and the Shadow rung 
With fear, into the Forest Passion young, 
That wrought, recasting, tempering the shells. 
As fine bell-bronze it cast them over, — swelled 
Their passions in the coverts and the dells; 
And in the brood of giants, reared where sun 
And moisture worked unhindered — there it strung 
And tuned them delicately. As a cloud 
Reflecting wonders of the sea, in proud 
Free tones it painted them. And in the bowed 
Green thicket's edge, where every lofty leaf 
Was as a vibrant shield, returning brief 
The sunset, there it lit them from a sheaf 
Of arrow-shafts of light. 
35 



On every cell 
Was the forest written for the shells 
That quit the sea. Forgotten was the well 
Of waters, — of the fathomless salt wash ; 
Forgotten the infinite time of clash 
Of wave on wave; the endless years of crash 
Of forest leaves to those who stooped and looked 
With forest eyes and fear, from under crooked, 
Sun shading hands. For still the Passion shook 
The waving sea of green; and still the strange, 
New forest tether held, with fringed chains 
Of trailing branches; and the forest grains 
Of living sufficed them. And forest ponds, — 
That in the leafy wilderness of sounds 
Like rain fast-driven, marked with tangled fronds 
The lesser margins of dark-mirrored skies, 
In solitude gave drink to satisfy. 
And in leaf-bottomed pools, where forest sighs 
Dropped down like falling needles, was their old 
Shell-patterned sea. 

Half-clad in steely mold, 
Upon the forest's rim, and half-controlled 
By fear, there gazed primordial Man, and stern, 
Bold foreheads of the mountains saw blood-tinged 
With sunset clearings. 

There in mantles fringed 
With bark of trees they paused within the edge. 
And one with them, at plain and tasseled sedge 
The Forest Passion looked from covert ledge 
And sheltered pool; from aisles of splashed sun- 
light, 
Where creepers grew, and wild bloom shook the 

night 
Of dusk with cardinal fire, — and specters like 
36 



To Terror slunk in labyrinths, — for one 
That ancient Passion was with Dread. 

Master and Guest 
It was, Indwelling IN laker, that no quest 
Could quite approach, — adorable, supreme; 
Who, in the forest folk it shaped, put green, 
Tough faith in many twisted dreams, 
And judgments powerful, and instincts sure, 
That from the forest were they born, — a lure 
That lay in beds of knee-high ferns and pure, 
Wild mosses. 

Children of the forest they 
Had come to be, and of the secret ways 
Of wildernesses. To the Guest they prayed 
With sacrifice of blood and fire; and deaths 
Of enemies in war; and children's breaths 
Expiring. From savage, sincere depths 
They worshipped at the Forest Passion's shrine. 

First dawn of faith that made the Tree divine ! 

That saw the 'Maker in the shift and shine 

Of dew-hung leaves. That held the facile Greek 

Close-gathered to the plane-tree; and the meek 

And fearful glancing Oriental, streaked 

W T ith sacrificial wounds, to Buddha's tree. 

Oh, adoration of the trees, agreed 
Upon in that first dawn of memory! 
Oh, song of forest adoration held 
Through final days of the Immortal, knelled 
By wanton deities of brake and dell, 
Who left light traces of their going swift, 
Beguiling laughter where they hid, and drift 
Of sudden speech in faint or vanished shift 
Of flying. 

37 



And through the time of later faith 

When man no more saw gods, but in their place 

The trees, with hark close-shut like secret gates, 

Endeared by many stories old, of woods 

That their own race had known; and in the blood 

Of man recovered there the early blood 

Of forest princes; and in the restless, frail. 

White aspens saw a woman's grace. 

The tale 
Of human life runs long in forest dale 
And pinery. But yesterday, — but now, 
The Passion still demands its own, and low, 
Reclaims with beckoning leaves and trailing 

boughs 
Its children venturing to cross the line 
That, half -obliterate divides the fine 
Spun memory of yesterday, — entwined 
With customs garlanded, and fruitage plump, — 
From life in places open to the brunt 
Of day. 

And still Man skirts the sheltered front, 
And peers from planted trees before his door; 
And builds his temples by the ancient lore 
Of forest memory and trees adored. 
And worshipping with evergreen, and moss 
Of yellow tinsel, and starry candle-hosts, 
And painted masks of sacrifice, the lost 
Immortal of his infancy, — the first 
Creator of the earth, — nor durst 
To sever all the sacred bonds; yet thirsts 
For freedom from his heritage. 



38 



From depths 
Of woodlands over-running life, and death, 
And home, and birth, and prayer, and lovers' 

breath 
Of cruel mastery, — from twisted root, 
And drooping leaf, and virgins' emblem fruit, 
And all-day summer heat of sun, the truth 
Of mystery he cannot separate. 
Still he lingers, and is captivate. 

From leaf-ensheltered home he contemplates 
With forest eyes the plain's mirage and wild, 
Sky-rimmed expanse. He cannot go, — the child 
Of fear and shadows, — cannot dare the mild, 
And open land untrammeled; not the still 
And barren plain where scarves of heat from hills 
Of thinnest air go wavering, and gild 
The western dunes. But tethered to the groves 
Of oak and laurel, and the dark woodroads, 
He waits, and almost man, he looks, and clings 
With backward-gripping hand, and forward flings 
A timid gaze for haunts familiar. 



39 



THE JUGGLER 

The square sleeps; walls turn back the waxing 
noon; 

And where have been the clamor and the cries 
Of shrilling venders is a golden shade; 

The world unshunnablc in torpor lies. 

Awake! Before the grimed doors there comes 
A brooding spirit in the nerveless street, — 

A soul of strange confusions with shut eyes, — 
A tattered juggler with uncovered feet. 

Alike for him the pits of fierce delay; 

The desert where no echo falls; alike 
The silence, or the wail of Rama's weeping. 

From supreme cold morns, and hoar and haunt- 
ed nights, 

And less'ning skies, and icy, vigil stars 

His craft was learned. He moves his stones, 
and lo! 
A troubled wind of footfalls runs along 

The square, — a cloud of men hangs black and 
low. 

Up from dust's emptiness the juggler builds 
His mystery. And hand to hand, and will 

Set hard, the watchers mark his handicraft. 
And lo! the wind, uncovering and still. 

On ruined capitols where man had wasted 
Rose his polished stones of slow-conceived 

Thought. And wan in a divine worksickness 
He set up temples out of dying leaves. 

40 



The achieved beauty died. And from the crew 
Three leaped, and spat; and one, a critic, cried: 

"Saw ye he lacks in workmanship?" and, "Laws! 
He has been taught no laws ! " his brother sighed. 

And hot the third man said: "This striving with 
The Inconceivable!" and thrust his lip 

As one who knew vast thoughts. And gusty 
laughter 
Came, and late, a harsher word was clipped. 

And he, the young, the stern Idolator, 
With yearning that to him is like a bugle 

In the glare, — that paints his blemished stones 
To dull the glory of the furnace sun, — 

Hears dimness fall, and fountains break. Ah, 
green 
The pastured lands, and fair the cloudy screen 
Where still a temple built with dressed stones 
Stands columned white. And over all the 
sky — 

The singing sky of invitation, holy, 

Solitary. And now the juggler dipped 

His hands in clouds that burn like cloister-flames, 
And through the square a wilderness there 
slipped. 

As one far-off he said: "So have I seen 
A mother build in anguish, — a man 

Sit closed in darkness drawing lines that flowed 
In light." And then there streamed from out 
his hands 



41 



Such mystery as when day goes, and spirits 
Soar the hills expiring momently. 

And like to them a woman came with steps 

Slow-paced, — with love's sad and patient lips. 

And one within whose eyes unveiled grace 

Did lie, — and one, a little maid, flower-faced, — 

Who dipped their vessels in the well that flowed 
With pain, — and one swooned in the wide, blue 
waste. 

Then from the wan into the golden hour 

The square was wrought, as tender moonlight 
pours 

To dawn, and he who had time-often heard 
The dynasties of silence call, was mute. 

The dust he marked with rolling of his hopeless 

Pottery, and moulded in the noon 
His gaudy clay, 'til swift the leaden stones 

Were seen to shine, — a spinning miracle, — 

And one by one in living words fall down, 

Many-faceted and beautiful. 
And each a little peace did give, — a flashing 

Secret, as of quickened snow, or sounds 

Of forests waking. Then the loosed sighs made 
A mighty breath. And one: "I saw a round, 

Dark room where rites were sung, — a fire 
That burned in blood on sacrificial ground!" 

Another cried: "The sky flowed like a stream 
Dropping over chasms in noon dreams, 

And there four laughing women changed to four 
Tall men who like to mortals were not born! 

42 



Their fiery thoughts were jeweled on their brows; 

Astride their leaping steeds that ran on air 
They struck the red horizon, and as vast, 

Immortal things, into the sun they bowed!" 

And then that critic said, — that one who knew 
The last alembic of great art, — "I vow 

I hold the potter dull, but here I saw 

A blown, white furnace whence a spirit flew. 

In cloudy smoke I saw this fellow stand 

And toss up on the topmost wave his brands, 

Hurtling, monstrous. Yet he held here too 
The fair and homely life within his hands. 

And yet, — and yet, — " he mused, "there was a 
ring 
Of bodies there, — flung arms, and muttered 
things. 
I all forgot my melancholy age 

In solving what this sorry fellow brings. " 



43 



WING WEARY 

It was no more than a white dove. — 
A dove with wings of omen 
Pot old-time, watching Roman, — 
That fluttered down the mountain sid< - 
The never-ending, never-yielding 
Walls of granite. But its slender 
Strength could not support the tender. 
Fragile feet that hung unshielded. 
Bleeding on the rocks; and wide 
Its wings spread aimlessly, and drooped 
Against the cloud that here had stooped 
To earth, as it would almost love 
The stones that pierced the swooning dove,- 
The dove with wings of omen. 

Xo thread of verdure was there here 

Upon, along the rocks; 

Xo living flowerstalk. 
Xor thorn, nor bramble blossomed fair 
To stay its weariness. Its breath 
Cut cruelly its parching throat. 
That once had voiced a liquid note; 
Its closing eyes could not detect 
The cactus-spears uplifted where 
It fell; and fading sense could never 
Spurn the lance that sharply severed 
Its slight thread of life, — nor hear 
The bubble of the waters near. — 

Oh. dove, forspent, wing-wean - ! 



44 



It lay, a little vanquished dove. 

(Oh, dove, with wings of omen 
For me, or old-time Roman!) 
Its small, still breast was bloody-stained 
With dauntless battling of the wind; 
And broken were the plumes and torn 
That lined the strengthless wings, and worn, 
Sweet body. A little dove with thin, 
Pink, battered legs, — with life-blood drained,- 
For daring in the upper air 
To pit its strength on mountains bare, 
To win across the lofty crags 
Where even eagle wings might flag, — 
Oh, little wings of omen! 



45 



THE PRAIRIE 

M Bran 

Alone, dew-drenched, the {Jains at earlv dawn. 
A flush upon the forehead of the hi 
A line of light beside the willows still.— 
Pale patterns on the earth-mosaic drawn; 
And triumph of a moment's twilit calm 
Where ever lightly flow the crests, until 
The waving grasslands touch the heaven's sill, 
And Day slips lingermgly its dusky bonds. 

Now from the cool, wet earth a whisper swetts; 

The first faint stirring of a homely sound 

That lifts up fittingly among the dells, 

And calls insistently above the ground 

In timid creatures' halting, tender speech. — 

Tlr p:.ur;t* = - ..-. -:-:.. ;l; - :; -- -.-.-. 



N ox 

A waving fine along the plains at noon 

Where wings go shifting through the flame-ring's 



Azz-i f :-:--h_ills i_;-"r V -Liz.i :. r_ -r :.-::::._. 
And rise, and hover like a hymn in runes. 

N : s:::.: I~s: *Jl ::—::: :jlt : : 

Nor reedy covert of the bayou's wetting; 
But out, to borders of age-long forgetting, 
A i^r.y- .ur-r _::-- irJ~.zz.z .:-.:- ir. i -_•:.. — 
A z rairie sighing in the solitude 
For long endearment of the sun and sky: 
And soon and late forever does it woo, 
With legends of a love to satisfy, — 

V.";-'_ - ; ^. ;. ;:' ; '.:-; :;„-.-: .:; ; ; ;;- v -; — 

The brooding silence of the prairie's voice. 

46* 



Night 

Grasslands obscure in earth's deep-bosomed 

might — 
Plains of dead sameness from the hills' faint 

tracing, — 
Dim, fertile prairies of no bournes nor placing, — 
Youth Immortal wrapt in purple light! 
Close-muffled as the secrets of the night, 
And breathless in the sky's wide-winged embrac- 
ing, 
An endless prairie of no home nor gracing, — 
Earth's barren pastures of no death nor life. 

But with the slow night -wing there goes, impelled 
From farther and more lonely star-sown wastes, 
A sighing, and an unvoiced word that tells 
The underthrob that beats in midnight haze, — 
The prairie's silences of dark adoring, — 
The prairie's lifeless life of long imploring. 



47 



POPPY FANTASY 

(A Fragment) 

Soft, as in the heat of day I slept, — 

For I was drunk with poppies' Bummer breath, 

And the blossoms, red, and white, and yellow, 
Leaned in rapture each to each its fellow, — 
There fairly was builded the house of man 
In happy meadows where the sunlight ran 
Down to vales of tender corn. Dark-green 
Was the prairie, and the noonday sheen 
Plundered the valleys with its golden shouts 
"Where silent morn and eve slip in and out. 
And floating in the middle blue there lay 
The castle builded o'er the poppy way. 

Its domes were high and shadowless as noon; 
Its portals were wide as slumbering dunes, 
And with a flower-dew encryst ailed, they 
Did dance and quiver in a flash and play, — 
Like water-shadows on a torrent tossed, — 
Or frantic bubbles in a whirlpool lost. 

And lighter than a wind that stirs the dust 
On pollened stems, and brighter than the thrust 
Of saber-lance athwart the sun, there came 
A smiling damsel, like a dainty flame, 
Where hourly out across the doorstones flowed 
The motley blossoms in a pleasure-road. 
(And oh, that maid, insistently and dear 
Still lingers in her singing sweet and clear. 
That like a dulcet lute in measures poured 
Through poppy casements and through crystal 

doors, 
In minor music to my soul and me, — 
Sweet motley blossoms in an ecstacy! 
•48 



Then to my tranced soul that waited there 

She cried, — to me she called, — "Come near! 

Come near!" 
Her throat of melody, — a singing lyre, — 
Was breath of poppies steeped in hungry fire. 
Her eyes were dark for maidens' holy shame, 
And drifting o'er the poppied stones she came 
And plucked my hand with glances shining, 

mute, — 
Exquisite maid, with breasts like summer fruit! 

Tardy went my soul beside the border 

Of blossoms pied, and with the shining warder 

Stood within the lintels of the room 

So spaciously enfashioned 'mid the bloom. 

Oh, graciously she led my soul within 

Where ever and forever went a wind 

In zephyred streams of poppies coursing sweet 

About the place, and waves of poppy heat 

About us there. 

It was a wind that bore 
Strange gleaming damsels in a floating choir 
Up and down an endless winding stair, — 
A columned stair, whose opal railings there 
But half concealed the damsels floating feet; 
And passed their dewy figures frail and sweet, 
That swayed like budding poppy-stalks, and 

leaned 
To whisper in a mad enchanting stream. 

And oh, a madness were the tender maids 
That midway up the opal balustrades 
Called o'er to me ! And oh, their faces fair 
Were bright for poppies' rosy shame, and bare 

49 



Their bosoms to the drowsy wind. To me 
They stooped and cried: "Thy love shall die, — 

and thee!" 
11 But, ah, take care ! Take care to pluck the leaves 
Of golden saffron on his mantle sleeves, — 
'Twill slay thee in the jubilee!" ' And long 
Re-echoed faintly on the walls the song 
"Take care! Take care!" So all the flowers 

belled, 
In nooning's lazy hour when petals fell. 
And strangely shook my soul amid the shouting 
And drooped its eyes before the lovely routing. 

Then gloriously came love in radiant flight, 
And in his flashing eyes a beam as bright, 
As tenderly it shone as evening star 
That drops its veiled beauty meek and far 
Above a peak in mists encircling. 
Before him swept his dreams. Their wings 
Made silver tumult in the sunny halls, — 
Made glancing ripples on the castle walls. 

Then cried my soul in demon-prophecy, 

"His touch is flame, — his kiss is agony, — 

And death is in his slumber-breathing voice!" 

(Endlessly the singing domes rejoiced.) 

His pinions beat with suffocating roar, 

His sandals touched the poppy-petaled floor, — 

He stooped, and all the rocking castle rang 

"With sudden music; and the damsels sang 

In gleeful shouting for the kiss of fire 

That touched my lips; and swept the waiting choir 

Of silver-winged dreams in madder flight 

Along the stairway and the walls of light. 



50 



Their gay and tender fantasy so wooed me 
'Neath sunny-throated towers, and roomy. 
On poppies stainless white and wanton red 
With dark-eyed Love a languid way to tread. 
And fey went all the flowers in the wind 
With looking and with longing; and within 
For touching of Love's slender finger-tips, 
And for the mingling of Love's holy lips 
With mine, down bent the damsels on the stair- 
-, way, 

Spread their snowy arms and raiment airy, 
Cried a-mocking to my soul and me: "Beware 
The yellow sleeves, — the sleeves! nor dare 
To let them jealously enfold thee! Oh, 
Beware!" And like to mating birds that row 
Of swaying damsels in their white and yellow, 
Leaned and whispered each to each her fellow; 
And shot their glistening arms to stay the dreams 
That hung above them in the glassy beams 
On wings translucent. 

The drowsy noon 
Came closer, and the Love's dark eyes did swoon 
Upon me in the throbbing, silent vale, 
Where stood the blossoms, motionless and pale. 
There was no fragrance o'er the poppy fields, 
Beneath the burning noon. And neither pealed 
The singing of the damsels and the dreams. 
And waned the domes against the sky; and 

gleamed 
The crystal dully on the fading walls. 
Only Love, the heavy-eyed and tall 
Young lonely god drooped o'er me till I knew 
The saffron sleeves were stony-gemmed with dew 
Of maidens' weeping. 

51 



Love smiled as fleeting 
As the urate o! windswept flowers meeting, 
And as he sought some Loved dainty face 
Looked out along the wanly shimmering place. 

Oh, came the damsel like a virgin flame. 
And murmuring like mourning mother-dove, 

With smoothing hand- above the eyes of Love, — 
"The heart!" she wept, " of saffron leaves!' 1 and 

both 
The maid and god smiled then, as quaintly loth 
And sad for some old sorrow. 

Up the steps 
That seemed with parching poppy buds, — that 

wet 
June mornings never reach, — to wither, were 
The figures paler than the face of her 
Who wept. And faintly vibrant did the sun 
Of noon reverberate within the domes; 
And shook the wall, and poppy buds, as shake 
The whistling sedges in a frozen brake. 



52 



MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS 

Slender birds of tempest, beating low 
On tireless wings and dancing feet above 
The water-wedge and spindrift that they love. 
Grey-winged petrels flying in the snow, 
And keeping faith that where they care to go 
Is joy in strife; and that the sea they love 
Must yield them living from the creamy shove 
Of breakers, — courage from the storm opposed. 

So flock the newsboys in the stormy streets, — 
Tireless petrels on the changing sea 
Of circumstance; and meanly clothed they dare 
To snatch their daily food and drink from care; 
Find bravest pleasure in the storm and stress, — 
Keep faith along the brink, — be danger's guest. 



53 



SONNET 

Still on the earth I go, and am content 
With pleasant waterways and hidden rills; 
And with the wide and windswept places filled 
With honest daylight, and wild-flower scents. 
Nor would I leave the meadows deep, where spenl 
Days linger; nor the over-hanging bills 
That rise a breastwork, mingling with the sills 
Of clouds, — supporting luminous sky-tents. 

A froth I am and to the earth bound fa^t. 
A moment's bubble of the ferment waging 
To and fro in empty-vaunted might 
That, rooted in the little clod that past 
The sun wheels helplessly, in puny staging 
Declare themselves like God, — sons of light. 



54 



SONNET 

A wrinkled age and sere sits all day long 
Upon the earth. The friendly darting shades 
Of early dawn have vanished in the braids 
Of burnished desert noon; and lean and strong, 
A Greediness, with parched throat and tongue, 
And eager eyes waits in the copper glades, 
And in a holy selfishness arrayed 
Repeats the burden of an outworn song. 
And Damon? He is dead. And with him, He 
Who was so wont to go in morning's raiment. 
The Poor despair for sorrow, and the soul 
Decays for weariness in them. Grown old 
We know no more of love, nor gentle payment 
Of love's debt, — no more of Thee in Me. 



65 



The Romans believed that every man had his 
Genius, and every woman her Juno; that is, o spirit 
who had given them being {from Gayley) 

I know thou dost belong to me, — a whole 

That is the half of me, inseparable, 

Oft-ruling. And part, or all, 

I cannot tell how first we met, nor call 

Thee by a name. But art that culpable, 

Mad Me, that shows the loaf, and me the mould. 

Poet-lover art thou in the night, 
Translating with wild signs my slipping dreams; 
Wheel in wheel Thou spellest, painting on 
The dark. But, woman in the signal dawn, 
Thou slayest with Herod-sword, and though Thou 

seem 
Not me, I know Thee for myself aright. 

Thou art the crimson sign that marks for me 
And for my innocents untimely death; 
And from the ruin of their sweet-pulsing lives 
Turn'st reckoning, and with a stroke deprive 
Me of my soul, and then my love, and saith: 
"Behold the poet, woman, lover, — ME!" 

So treacherous, — so subtle, — and yet me? 
Awake to know me not, and baffled now 
To bid me sing among the tents of Shem? 
But leaning to some Canaanite, whose hem 
Is criminal, I see me there, and Thou ! 
Must I be an old love divorced from Thee? 



5d 



Thou art that One that makes me strange among 

A brotherhood; that hot, self -pitying tears 

Can dry; my brow keep smooth; and hold the 

glass 
For me, my soul, and Thee 'til we three laugh. 
That, tiger-leaping, takes from me the years 
That should be mad, and gay, and hopeless sung. 

And Thou art still that Glory shent 

Of evil; that Defiance to set odds 

Of trembling love to fearful truths; Thou art 

The tragic step, the timid look, the heart's 

Last blazing misery that hates its God. 

Thou art the world, my soul, and me, forspent. 



57 



THE AYIDE LOW PLAIX 

Dawn on the wide, low plain, and the moon in 
the distance fading; 

And out from the lonely bayou a crested heron 
soaring, 

Like the soul of a dying shadow absolved by the 
tender light. 

Deep, in quaint, shy notes, comes the murmur of 
life awaking 

Here where the trembling mist strains at a gossa- 
mer mooring; 

And far, from the gloomy arroyo, the coyotes wail 
of the night. 

Noon on the wide, low plain, and the sun on the 

foothills burning; 
And mirage, like weird magicians, waving its 

slender fingers; 
And the stillness of woven spells over all the 

quivering plain. 
Out of the cool Northwest comes the wayward 

Zephyrus, turning 
The plumes of the drooping Gilead, where balm 

of Mecca lingers, 
And the hush of enchanted silence moves'Jnto 

silence again. 

Dusk on the w 7 ide, low plain, and a shade o'er 

the prairie creeping; 
And here on the idle hillside the amber sunlight 

stealing 
From the jasper stems of the thicket to the pinons' 

green minaret. 
Dusk on the waiting earth, and the gloom of the 

valley sweeping 

58 



Over the somber foothills, and a wildwood carol 

pealing 
From the throat of a darkling thrush in the alders' 

dim silhouette. 

Life on the wide, low plain, and the breath of 
life in the living; 

And far as the eye can reach, or the soul in deepest 
yearning, 

A measureless space about you like the ways of 
a world untrod. 

Freedom, and wide-winged hope are the gifts of 
the plain's fair giving; 

And symphonies far outsoaring the flight of loft- 
iest dreaming, — 

And paintings in transcendent tones enlimned 
for the vision of gods. 



59 



AT NIGHT 

Why do the fields in the night allure me, lying 
Wet in the dark? and the hum of insect- 
Stir in my throat such a quick resp< So fair 

Floats a star on the river's brim where I lean. 
Crouching, to listen; for greetings I hear where 
Timorous things in their shy retreats come near. — 
Near to me. speaking. And where was learned 

this fear 
Holding me fast in the moonrise' ruddy beam? 

Music of wind through the rain, and spindrift 

flying 
Over the marshes; and plovers wanly crying 
Down in the meadows. What calls me in the 

rain. 
Yearning and clear as the notes of wood-doves 

lost? 
Why do the clouds, and the breakers' foam-white 

manes 
Tease me with longings for flight? .And here 

where brush 
Drips in the dark, why the sick desire for m s 
Tree-trunks, and odor of leaves, and woods' damp 

hush? 

Far in the night of the forest rings the yelping 
Of beasts of prey; and the whine of creatures 

whelping 
Startles the dusk. Through the stillness of branch 

and leaf 
Whispers the patter of slinking feet; and doe . — 
Close in the twilight, the traitor crouch and leap. 
Who was it struggled and died, in gaping throes, 

00 



There in the dawn, alone in the close-hung wood? 
Who was it fought there, and won, in solitude? 

Where have I known it before, — the snarl, and 

scowling 
Eye of my foe? And where was the conflict 

howling 
That makes me alert? And the sleek, sly grace 

of limb, — 
Why should it stir in my soul desire and dread? 
Sure runs a memory back, of telling wind 
Tainted with death; and yet will my human flesh 
Shudder and stiffen, — ready for what? and fresh 
Odor of earth arouse me like blood new-shed. 



61 



REMEMBER 

Look in my eyes and remember 

The pallor of past sunrises, — the Bounds 

Of an ocean timbre. Rememl^er 
A dream that still lives. — in waiting is found: 
In sighing that comes from the wandered 
And desolate places, — in rivers i> drowned. 

Must meanings be born out of weepiii- I 
You slept, but I heard in a breathing-space 
A sob in the arches go leaping, 
And run through the crowded perfecti< 

place 
And time. Oh. remember the sleeping 
And waking. — the rainy dawn on a im 

Remember! Know if I am I, 

You are more. Look here in mv heart at the 

hosts — 
The phantasm world that goes by. 
Look where I look at the darkening ghoe - 
Of ourselves that are peering on high, — 
That are passing, and peering at us. 

Rerueruber the touch of the past. — 

The trembling, the imminent past. In my 

heart's 
Deepest hollows.. Oh. love, hast 
Thou builded, and building, forgotten the 

parts. 
Conceive then more lovely and vast 
The place where thy naked soul slumbers 

apart. 



G-2 



TO DOROTHY GRACE 

Is thine the faith that goes without a name? 
The something inner, vague, that sees the world 
But as a sign, thai now thy hands are furled 
So meekly? Or is thy thought the same 
That witnesses an endless shift of scenes 
And understandeth not the meaning there? 
But not a half-tuned string that snaps, and rare, 
Potential melodies discords, does seem 
Thy sudden laughter; but so dear, that I 
Am half in love with life. "It ends soon, 
And never more can be," Who lives that knows? 
Thy lips are sad and tender as when skies 
Are cast with clouds, — thou carol of all noons. 
Death o'ertakes us? The hour goes? 

In the region of the heart where some 
Dwell all alone with faith and coward fear, 
As thou hast pla3 r ed in sun and shadow here, 
The toy of any wind, Oh, pretty one! 
Is there built the temple of a "may be" 
Victory gained upon a lonely chance? 
It may bel Then shall I couch a lance? 
With thy tenderness enhelmet me? 
Before my loveless heart thy ringlet gold 
Set warrior- wise, — defy myself with thee? 
So be, thou dear, fair flower, and on rare days, 
When summer odors flock, thou shalt unfold 
Thy dimpled hands on hills and sandy leas; 
Secure in love thou shalt be radiant gay. 



63 



OPEN! OPEN! 

Open! Open the tall doors of your heart 
To the worn-out winds that are blowing; 

To the dusty ways, and the endless march 
Of the world that is coming and going. 

Set wide, Oh, set wide the dear portals 
To the needy, and the imaccl aimed; 

And call in the weary, poor mortals 
In your pity and love unashamed. 

Make ready, make fair the rooms that are 
wide, — 
That are high with your learning and pa- 
tience; 
And bring in the tired from the place where 
they die, 
And tell them the law of the nations. 

And the weak that are craven and fallen, 

In the dust of battle afraid, — 
Tell them the courage of honor, 

And the strength of a man and a maid. 

Open ! Open the tall doors of your heart ! 

They are waiting, the craven, afraid, 
In the time-weary strife, and the empty life 

.Where the stones of their dreaming are laid. 

Set wide the dear portals, — set wide; 

And make ready the rooms of your learning; 
For they come from love that has died, — has 
died 

In the night of an infinite yearning. 

64 



Make holy, make sweet the place that it sang; 

And wear you the flowers of its giving. 
Free-born of the tempest and sun it sprang, 

And died in its passion of living. 

Open ye swift the tall doors of your heart, 
To the fainting and sore ashamed. 

For I bring ye here, from the barren years, 
The love that ye would not claim. 



65 



A ROAD 

So many years, and years. 

Since last I saw this mountain, banked 

Flat and blue against 

The eastern sky, — since last I saw 

Yon gorge below the knoll 

Of sunned, green pines. So many years 

Have passed me since this road 

Swam full of quiet lightings of 

The mystic, coming night. 

Darker once was this cool dell 

For beauty, where I turned 

To mark a southern star, and gain 

A pause in sudden love's 

Tumult uousness. And there I heard 

Amid the silent asps, 

A laughter, wondrous, luminous; 

And there my heart was taught 

The nearness of the chiselled peaks 

Of far, far ranges built 

In boundless sympathy. Oh, years! 

Oh, road where I have prayed 

For faith and memory, — I 

\Yho never have forgot. 

The youngest shoots of pines lift up 

Among the stript, and dead, — 

life with Death. And alder trees 

Of white Hope meeting, as of pain 

And pleasure, after years. 

Oh, road, expectant, sad, 

Between the slender trees. Deep, deep 

The slow and toneless chords 

Arise, and in their waves desire 



66 



Mingles, and faints, — a deathless 

Thing, — but in whose exiled life 

Must glorious wanderings 

Make, and often, to this lane 

Among the pines, such ache 

Of loneliness there is to see 

Again, to kneel, to pray 

Release from iron thought, — from hills 

That call divine and far 

Their wordless summons; from skies 

That bend in dreams; from drifted 

Sand that rolls beneath a step 

As though 'twere water flowed 

In yellow fire. Oh, road of leaves 

That beckon, and languid 

Winds that sigh! So many years 

To not forget, — forget. 

Roses are on the high-walled range, — 
Roses of fire and snow! 
Oh, near, near the faltering night, — 
The gleaming grass, — the road 
Without a name, — without a star! 



67 



THE POET 

The falseness of the dream awakes; 

The trailing glory fl 
From round: and yet the wings that shake 

The wistful dawn, — the blown 
Sea-raptures, — and the foam that biv 

Are faces that he knows. 

The heaped hills he knows; and those 

Young souls that quiver like 
A runner girt, — that sparkling Those 

Whose fire-winged feet spurn dikes 
Of earth; and that Destroyer knows 

Who., passion-hungered, strikes. 

And he has trembled for the k 
That burns, and brands his grief 

"Where callous souls may see, and hiss 
His nakediic — . He keeps 

His field of parched pain and bliss; 
And fatal-dewed, he sleeps. 



68 



TO A MOUNTAIN BUTTERCUP 

Sweet, that has been torn from a warm mother, 
And winds that love, — Oh, gay and gallant bloom! 
Oh, core of dauntlessness in spirit noons! 
Death descends upon thee now, my brother. 
Flower of mountains, furl thy waxy petals; 
An hour in folding leaves thy soul may live; 
An hour thy fragrancy of sun may'st give 
With fading hues, Oh, thou of bonny mettle. 
Thou tender thing in polished, golden shields, — 
Wilt droop, discarded, to forgetfulness? 
Not so. Behold, thou shalt forever be. 
Even while thy blameless life thou yieldest 
Thou shalt be written in regretfulness, — 
Thou slain for mortal, — more divine than he. 

Sweet buttercup, give me my words in gold 
Like thine, to make thy loss a treasure-cup 
Of glossy memory, where gathered up 
Are happy braveries, and summer's soul 
In burning armor. From this faint waft 
Of thee let me braid lines that may be chanted 
'Mid thy brotherhood that nod in meadows plant- 
ed 

By the careless winds. And where have laughed 
Wild hearts of children, and all day long no ill 
Can come, thou shalt be garlanded, and proud, 
Sweet-voiced maids shall sing thee, golden flower. 
Death descends upon thee. Spend thou still 
Thy lavish spirit, that the singers loud 
May tell the briefness of a lovely hour. 






Flower of the stormy crag, hold yet awhile 

The mountain fastness in thee, — thou uptorn 

From all thy wildwood banqueting, — thou born 

To be sport of butterflies, and guile 

Of painted dragons. All overthrown 

Thou liest here, the Waster's spoil, and breath 

By breath, learnest, I think, the way of death, — 

A body whence the soul is lately flown 

In fragrance. Sweet, wert thou once deeply 

touched 
With wonder of the light? And didst thou darken 
Day with bootless visions too? Oh, flower, 
Fast-fading to the mastering first dust, 
Thou hast but cried to emptiness, and hearkened 
To pale anguish in thy little hour. 

Flower on whose hillsides all the winds commune, 
Surprising thee with dolours of the vales, — ■ 
From loosened boughs with banished goblin tales 
Delighting; and with solitary tunes 
Pipe to thee of the wrecked hours by the thicket, 
Oh, hear, sweet flower, — and e'en as thou didst 

perish 
'Neath the feet of Jove, when he that cherished 
Darling wooed behind a prison-wicket, 
Distilling fragrant showers of gold, so do 
Thou wreak thy vengeance in soft odors. Be 
Here a secret love, and these fine strings 
Of jewelled stamens shall be strange, and true, 
And perfect-toned harps in ecstacy, 
And timbrel voices for the heaven's King. 



70 



Thou genius of the sun-warmed solitudes, 
How kept these petals five their debonair 
And glowing purity? And flower, oh, where 
Was got this tenderness of look? Have woods 
With priestly sacraments accepted thee? 
And dews baptized thy innocence each morn, 
Praying holily that thou wast born, 
That thou canst live in careless death and me? 
What sigh of immortality is here 
In exhalations of a bonny flower? 
Thou fadest, but a Presence half remains, — 
A thought of June's sweet hardihood, and clear 
Enchanted songs, — a lyric of bright hours, — 
A laugh, — and gladness in the hearts of men. 



71 



CITY OF IDLENESS 

Stands a sun-bright city of blowing highways 
In the tiger-lilies of dawn. Oh, wherefore 
Slumbers my love, heavily dreaming? Wherefore, 
Oh, thou most lovely? 

By the incense-fires at the southern gateways 
Laughs a mad love-priestess for soft desiring; 
Cries, thou art loving another than me, — 
Thou, my beloved. 

On the broidered banks she will leave thee weeping. 
She will mock thy call in the city portals. 
Buckler then thy heart for the lightness dreadful, 
Ere thou forsake me. 

Yea, and gird thy love with the warrior's new lust; 
Arm thee fierce like light for the smoking altars; 
For in wide, rosed streets she will see thee falter, 
Oh, thou most lovely ! 

Dust of earth's dust — Ah, for tomorrow! Love, 

I 
Pray thee veil thine eyes in my breast, — yea, kiss 

me 
Ere thou forsake me, — ere me thou forgettest — 
"Me thou forgettest." 

Stands the high-roofed city of sunny highways 
In the tiger-lilies of dawn. Oh, wherefore 
Lingers my love, heavily weeping? Wherefore, 
Oh thou most lovely? 



72 



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